Scanomilk - Mobile Analyzer of Milk Quality

Almost everyone has milk as the first drink in their life. In infancy it is the mother's milk. In childhood, youth and adulthood it's a cow's or goat's milk. It is worth noting that the older a person becomes the more the distance increases between the source of milk and its consumer. A not always clear system of intermediaries often leads to an increase in the cost of the product and reduction in its quality. About 30-35% of milk is counterfeit according to Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing in Russia. There are the same problems in the United States, India, China and other countries. We have observed having examined the State of the Russian market of milk analyzers that the most affordable of them is very sizeable and costs more than $600. This amount is not available for consumers and for the owners of households with small livestock population. In this regard, our goal was to develop a low-cost mobile milk analyzer.

We have noticed from the scientific literature that certain milk components absorb narrow ranges of visible wavelengths of light, and this fact served as a basis for setting up our analyzer.

Scanomilk is a plastic cylindrical box which consists of 2 parts: Outside of the upper part there is a power button and a touch screen and inside of the upper part there is a camera. Inside of lower part there is Petri dish, under the Petri dish there is a two-color LED with 2 emission wavelengths.

After the software starts, we can specify the color of the LED light at the lower part of the box and take a series of images with a camera on the upper part of the box.

How it works: 1) Homogenized milk is added in a Petri dish.2) A series of images are taken from each of the LEDs one after another.3) Images are analyzing and comparing with the standard from the memory of the software.4) The screen displays the result.

The diameter of red and green spots indicate the fat or crude protein concentrations.

Scanomilk has the following advantages: mobility (settings); self-containment (lowest energy demand); ease of use; the low cost in the set of the necessary characteristics. In our view, these characteristics allows the device to be successful not only in Russia but also in the international market.